Exploring Headteachers’ Leadership Practices in Public ECD Centres: A Narrative Inquiry.[Unpublished MPhil Disertation ].

Abstract

Guided by Instructional Leadership Theory and Theory of Career. This qualitative study explored the leadership practices and perceptions in improving the ECD quality of headteachers in public Early Childhood Development centers in Kathmandu Valley using a narrative inquiry approach. The study was bound to answer two key questions: How do the headteachers of public ECD centers narrate the experiences of leadership practices? And how do headteachers in public ECD centers perceive their role in improving the quality of early childhood development in their centers? Four headteachers of public schools who also run ECD centers were the main participants, and two other ECD teachers were also there to facilitate data verification. From in depth narrative and reflective interviews, the study revealed a list of challenges and lessons learned, most critically. Perhaps headteachers exhibit an enormous capacity for ECD development and struggle with issues of infrastructure, space constraints and daunting administrative demands. Perceived sufficiency of short-term teachers' training was the second shared finding, where the participants assumed little professional development, reflecting a massive gap between the knowledge of a specialist nature or education for early childhood development. The majority of headteachers didn’t have any formal training or exposure to ECD-specialized pedagogy. The leadership focus often leads more toward upper grades, leaving ECD misunderstood. Headteachers viewed Classroom management through a surface-level lens. Prioritizing aesthetic over child-centred functionality. The research accentuates context-based preparation for head teachers as well as context-based policy reform so as to enable headteachers to become instructional leaders more effectively. Lastly, the quality of ECD programming in public ECD Centers should be improved. It further advances our research in ECD leadership scholarship, giving practical guidelines to educators and policymakers and enabling young kids to integrate development through improving key leadership qualities. This research argued that quality improvements in ECD settings require contextually responsive leadership. Finally, as a researcher, the process was an eye-opener and humbling. What had begun as a straightforward plan of conducting interviews and analyzing narratives became complicated in practice. One of the most significant challenges was obtaining time from headteachers who were busy, which demanded perseverance and flexibility. The process opened my eyes to understanding narrative inquiry not only as a research methodology but as a relational and context-sensitive process.